HELSINKI — China’s main space contractor says it will push into new commercial space domains in the coming years as the country formulates its latest Five-year plan.

The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s state-owned main space contractor, outlined plans for space tourism, digital infrastructure, resource development and space traffic management, state media China Central Television (CCTV) reported Jan. 29.

The statement comes as China prepares for annual political sessions in Beijing in March at which the country’s 15th Five-year plan (2026-2030) will be approved. The CASC statements indicate the corporation’s broad strategic intent rather than confirmed funding and schedules, but appears to fit into the Chinese government’s wider support for commercial space and strategic areas such as digital and AI infrastructure.

On space resources, CASC calls for feasibility studies for a proposed “Tiangong Kaiwu” major initiative, referring to an earlier-proposed, multi-decade roadmap for solar system-wide resource utilization. It will also seek breakthroughs for technology needed for celestial small body resource prospecting, autonomous extraction technologies and low-cost transport and on-orbit processing. While vague and in some cases far off in terms of implementation, the calls reflect China’s already known longer-term interests in asteroid exploration, cislunar infrastructure and space resource governance.

Regarding space-based digital infrastructure, CASC proposes gigawatt-scale space-based computing infrastructure, envisioning integrated cloud-edge-terminal architecture in orbit. Concepts include space data processed in space and joint space-ground computing. This aligns with Chinese interests in reducing reliance on downlink bandwidth, autonomous satellite operations and space-based AI and data processing, as demonstrated by experimental satellites and push to develop capabilities including optical inter-satellite links.

Mysterious dark matter may be better understood through a new map of far-off galaxies.

The ordinary matter all around us — stars, planets and people — makes up just 5 per cent of the universe. For decades, researchers have hoped to demystify what’s known as dark matter, a material that comprises just over a quarter of our universe. Another equally mysterious force called dark energy makes up the rest.

Dark matter doesn’t absorb or give off light so scientists can’t study it directly. But they can observe how its gravity warps and bends the star stuff around it — for example, the light from distant galaxies. By studying these distortions across large swathes of the universe, scientists can get closer to unmasking dark matter and its various hiding places.

The latest map, created with images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, is the most detailed yet over such a large patch of sky. It has twice the resolution of previous attempts using the Hubble Space Telescope and captures hundreds of thousands of galaxies over the past 10 billion years.

“Now, we can see everything more clearly,” said study author Diana Scognamiglio with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The latest map, published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, includes information on new galaxy clusters and the strands of dark matter that connect them. Piece by piece, these structures help form the skeleton of the universe. Scientists can study this map to see how dark matter has clumped up over billions of years.

Dark matter doesn’t have much of an impact on your midday lunch order or your nightly bedtime ritual. But it silently passes through your body all the time and has shaped the universe.

As humans, we’re naturally curious to know more about where we come from and that story can’t be told without dark matter, said #astrophysicist Rutuparna Das with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

“Our home is the universe and we want to understand what the nature of it is,” said Das, who was not involved with the new study.

#Astronauts say space station’s ultrasound machine was critical during medical crisis.

During their first public appearance since returning to Earth, the four astronauts refused Wednesday to say which one of them needed medical attention and for what reason. It was NASA’s first medical evacuation in 65 years of human spaceflight.

NASA’s Mike Fincke said the crew used the onboard ultrasound machine once the medical problem arose Jan. 7, the day before a planned spacewalk that was abruptly canceled. The astronauts had already used the device a lot for routine checks of their body changes while living in weightlessness, “so when we had this emergency, the ultrasound machine came in super handy.”

It was so useful that Fincke said there should be one on all future spaceflights. “It really helped,” he said.

“Of course, we didn’t have other big machines that we have here on planet Earth,” he added. “We do try to make sure that everybody before we fly are really, really not prone to surprises. But sometimes things happen and surprises happen, and the team was ready ... preparation was super important.”

The space station is set up as well as it can be for medical emergencies, said NASA’s Zena Cardman, who commanded the crew’s early return flight with SpaceX. She said NASA “made all the right decisions” in canceling the spacewalk, which would have been her first, and prioritizing the crew’s well-being.

Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui said he was surprised how well all the preflight training paid off in dealing with the health concerns.

“We can handle any kind of difficult situation,” Yui said. “This is actually very, very good experience for the future of human spaceflight.”

Joining them on what turned out to be a 5 1/2-month mission — more than a month shorter than planned — was Russia’s Oleg Platonov. They launched last August from Florida and splashed down in the Pacific off the San Diego coast last week.

Welcoming them back to Houston were their replacements, who aren’t due to launch until mid-February. NASA and SpaceX are working to move up the flight.

“We were hoping to give them hugs in space, but we gave them hugs on Earth,” Fincke said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press

Four #astronauts are about to make an abrupt exit from the International Space Station amid a health concern — and their unprecedented early departure will leave behind a bare-bones staff to look after the outpost.

Only three people will remain on the orbiting laboratory: Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev of Russia and #NASA astronaut Chris Williams.

The four returning astronauts climbed aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule on Wednesday afternoon and, just before 3:30 p.m. ET, closed the hatch between the spacecraft and the International Space Station in preparation for their departure.

The U.S. space agency will livestream Crew-11’s final departure from the ISS on NASA+ starting at 4:45 p.m. ET Wednesday, with the capsule set to undock from the space station around 5 p.m. ET.

It’s a less-than-ideal scenario. NASA has repeatedly signaled that keeping the ISS fully staffed is a top priority, as the agency aims to maximize the amount of scientific research it can conduct on the aging station before it’s permanently retired early next decade.

NASA’s new administrator, Jared Isaacman, made the decision last week to bring the four-person crew home early when the agency canceled a January 8 spacewalk slated to be carried out by American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman.

“For over 60 years, NASA’s set the standard for safety and security in crewed spaceflight,” Isaacman said during a news conference last week. “In these endeavors, including the 25 years of continuous human presence on board the International Space Station, the health and the well-being of our astronauts is always and will be our highest priority.”

Fincke and Cardman, along with astronaut Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, are part of the Crew-11 mission that’s leaving the space station. NASA did not say which crew member is experiencing a medical concern — nor did the space agency provide any details about the nature of the condition, citing privacy concerns. However, NASA has said the affected astronaut is in stable condition.

“Everyone on board is stable, safe, and well cared for,” Fincke confirmed in a statement posted to LinkedIn. “This was a deliberate decision to allow the right medical evaluations to happen on the ground, where the full range of diagnostic capability exists. It’s the right call, even if it’s a bit bittersweet.”

The Crew-11 team is slated to splash down in the Pacific Ocean aboard the Crew Dragon capsule around 3:40 a.m. ET Thursday.

Meanwhile, NASA is working to expedite the launch of a replacement crew, called Crew-12, which originally had been slated for mid-February.

What an understaffed ISS means

The space station hasn’t had such a small crew on board in years. However, during a news conference last week, Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, noted that it’s not unprecedented.

Before SpaceX began routinely flying its Crew Dragon capsule on staffing rotation missions to the space station in 2020, NASA had to purchase seats on Russia’s Soyuz capsule for rides to the outpost for nearly a decade after the Space Shuttle was retired in 2011.

“The crew on board, both Russian and American, are well trained to operate in the environment that they’re in, and can operate the nominal systems, the nominal research, per the plan, until their crewmates arrive,” Kshatriya said, using the spaceflight term “nominal” to refer to normal operations.

Still, the remaining crew members will likely need to leave some tasks unattended. For example, Kshatriya acknowledged, the trio will not be able to carry out the spacewalk that Fincke and Cardman had been slated to execute.

The American duo had been tasked with exiting the space station to prepare its exterior for the installation of new solar panels, which provide the outpost with power.

Delays installing the solar panels are not expected to create any urgent issues as the new hardware was intended to give the space station a power boost for expanding activity on board, Kshatriya said.

As things stand, the outpost does not need additional power for baseline operations, and there’s “plenty of margin,” Kshatriya noted.

Still, attempting to maintain the space station with only three crew members on board does have its challenges and risks, according to Garret Reisman, a former NASA astronaut who himself was part of a three-person crew alongside two Russians at the orbital outpost more than a decade ago.

“If I was going to put my finger on one thing that is significantly increased risk — it would be if something breaks on the outside,” Reisman told CNN in a Tuesday phone interview.

For example, should an issue arise on the exterior of the U.S. side of the space station — such as an electrical switching unit suddenly breaking — Williams would not be able to conduct a spacewalk to fix the issue on his own.

Likely, one of his Russian colleagues would have to use an American suit and attempt to aid him on such an excursion, possibly with little training.

Such an emergency scenario is highly unlikely, Reisman noted, but it highlights why NASA typically does not like to bring an ISS crew home until a replacement crew is already in place.

4 astronauts to depart ISS, leaving behind just 3 crewmates to staff the orbiting lab

#NASA crew to make rare early return to Earth after medical issue in space.


NASA has not provided details about the nature of the problem, citing privacy concerns. The agency typically does not discuss the specifics of health matters related to astronauts.

A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule will bring the four-person crew home, disembarking from the ISS as soon as Wednesday at 5 p.m. ET. The spacecraft is then expected to splash down off the coast of California early the following morning, NASA said in a statement Friday evening.

The affected astronaut is in stable condition, NASA previously confirmed, and is not expected to receive special treatment during the return trip, said Dr. James Polk, NASA’s chief health and medical officer at the agency’s headquarters. The astronaut would also be best served by being evaluated on the ground, Polk added.

“We have a very robust suite of medical hardware on board the International Space Station,” Polk noted during a Thursday news conference. “But we don’t have the complete amount of hardware that I would have in the emergency department, for example, to complete a workup of a patient.

“And in this particular incident,” he added, “we would like to complete that work up, and the best way to complete that workup is on the ground.”

The returning group, which includes American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov, makes up NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11. The mission, part of the orbiting laboratory’s regular staffing rotation, was expected to conclude no earlier than next month. Typically, NASA wouldn’t bring a team such as this back to Earth before another was in place.

NASA’s newly appointed administrator, Jared Isaacman — who has twice flown to orbit on private SpaceX missions — said he made the call to bring the group of four astronauts home.

Isaacman said during a news briefing Thursday that his decision was informed by the fact that four crew members are slated to launch to the space station on NASA’s Crew-12 mission in the coming weeks, and the agency is assessing ways to expedite that launch. The mission had been slated to take off around mid-February.

The Crew-11 team will depart the space station within “days,” Isaacman said.
Delayed spacewalk

NASA revealed the astronaut’s medical concern on Wednesday when it announced that the agency was opting to postpone a spacewalk, citing the undisclosed “medical concern.”

“These are the situations NASA and our partners train for and prepare to execute safely,” NASA noted in a statement.

When the Crew-11 astronauts return, it will leave only one NASA astronaut on board the football-field-size orbiting laboratory: Chris Williams, who arrived at the space station in late November on board a Russian Soyuz capsule as part of a ride-sharing agreement between the U.S. and Russia.

Officials on Thursday said Williams is well prepared to handle any tasks that come his way, and they are confident he will be joined shortly by the Crew-12 astronauts to return staffing to normal levels.

“This is one of the reasons why we fly mixed crews on Soyuz and U.S. vehicles — because we want to make sure we have operators for both (the U.S. and Russian) segments” of the space station, said Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator.

Dr. Farhan Asrar, a space medicine researcher and associate dean at the Toronto Metropolitan University School of Medicine, told CNN via email that health care providers face unique challenges attempting to treat or diagnose astronauts as they orbit more than 200 miles (320 kilometres) above Earth. The limitations can turn even common ailments — such as toothaches or ear pain — into difficult medical conundrums.

“Even though astronauts undergo frequent and ongoing health checks, the extreme environment of space does put a significant strain on health (stress on the heart, bone, eyes, kidneys, mood and other systems),” Asrar said.
A history of in-space medicine

NASA’s decision to withhold the affected astronaut’s name and details about their condition follows a long-established pattern. Information about the impact of spaceflight on the human body or other medical concerns that occur during missions are generally made public as part of broader scientific studies and research, and specific astronauts are not usually identified.

Conditions such as space adaptation syndrome — an ailment characterized by vomiting and vertigo that is experienced by many astronauts during their first hours in microgravity — only came into focus after years of research and revelations in academic journals. The condition is common, however, and has affected astronauts dating back to the beginning of spaceflight.

An incident in which an astronaut experienced a case of jugular venous thrombosis, a dangerous condition in which a blood clot can form in a person’s jugular vein, was also revealed in an academic journal. The identity of the astronaut impacted has never been made public.

Additionally, after SpaceX’s Crew-8 missions returned from the space station in October 2024, one of the four crew members experienced a “medical issue” and was flown to a hospital in Florida.

The space agency did not provide further details at the time, saying in a statement only that the crew member was “in stable condition” and “under observation as a precautionary measure.” The identity of the crew member is still unknown.

Over the past 25 years that the space station has operated, NASA has worked to respond to a “host” of medical issues, Polk noted during the Thursday briefing.

“Fortunately for us, we’ve had equipment and medications and things to be able to handle all of those such that we were able to complete the treatment and or the diagnosis on orbit,” Polk said.

#BREAKING: #NASA cuts space station mission short after an astronaut’s medical issue.

The crew of four returning home arrived at the orbiting lab via SpaceX in August for a stay of at least six months. The crew included NASA’s Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke along with Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russia’s Oleg Platonov.

Fincke and Cardman were supposed to carry out the spacewalk to make preparations for a future rollout of solar panels to provide additional power for the space station.

It was Fincke’s fourth visit to the space station and Yiu’s second time, according to NASA. This was the first spaceflight for Cardman and Platonov.

“I’m proud of the swift effort across the agency thus far to ensure the safety of our astronauts,” NASA administrator Jared Isaacman said.

Three other astronauts are currently living and working aboard the space station including NASA’s Chris Williams and Russia’s Sergei Mikaev and Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, who launched in November aboard a Soyuz rocket for an eight-month stay. They’re due to return home in the summer.

NASA has tapped SpaceX to eventually bring the space station out of orbit by late 2030 or early 2031. Plans called for a safe reentry over ocean.

Adithi Ramakrishnan, The Associated Press

No more free rides: it’s time to pay for space safety :

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/12/ensuring-american-space-superiority/

WASHINGTON — Orbital launch activity set another annual record in 2025, although future growth may depend on factors different from those that fueled the recent surge.

There were 324 orbital launch attempts worldwide in 2025, according to a SpaceNews analysis of open-source data. The total excludes suborbital launches, such as five test flights of SpaceX’s Starship that did not reach orbit by design, as well as three launches of the HASTE variant of Rocket Lab’s Electron.

The total represents a 25% increase from the previous record of 259 orbital launch attempts in 2024, which itself marked a 17% increase from the 221 launches recorded in 2023.

Growth in global launch activity over the past several years has been driven primarily by SpaceX and Chinese launch providers. In 2020, when there were 107 orbital launch attempts worldwide, SpaceX conducted 26 Falcon 9 launches, while Chinese operators carried out 35 launches.

In 2025, SpaceX flew 165 Falcon 9 missions, more than the rest of the world combined. China conducted 92 orbital launches, spread across roughly two dozen vehicle families operated by state-owned enterprises and private startups.

Innospace plans second launch in 2026 after failure of first Hanbit-Nano rocket